Against Fate
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. What if Judgment Day had been avoided? What if a different choice was made? What if…it was you that made the choice and it affected everything else done…and undid everything else? Read and review, please.


Creation began on 04-25-12

Creation ended on 09-16-13

Terminator

Against Fate

A/N: I've looked at the what-if scenarios of the _Terminator_ franchise, and I've not encountered what I was looking for. Here goes everything and nothing. This is based on _Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines_ with my own twist.

As all the systems that made up the digital defense network, Skynet, were now ready to be activated, one of the technicians asked General Robert Brewster if he wanted him to execute the start-up program now.

"No," General Brewster told him. "That's my job now."

Ever since yesterday's discovery of the new computer virus that was making a mess of everything from the regular Internet to the air traffic control of the civilian sector, straight to the military systems of the USA, the crisis of controlling the situation was now out of control…and only the new Skynet system could correct the problem. With over fifteen billion spent of making sure the program would run efficiently and without haste, Cyber Research Systems was looking for solutions to what little options they had left.

As General Brewster held his finger over the 'Y' button, a sense of hesitation caught hold of him. He was afraid of the virus infecting Skynet if it was a lot more stronger and tricky than they all suspected it was when it started to assume control of global communications and the missile silos and subs. Somehow, call it fate or foolishness, he felt that he was playing right into somebody's hand…and redirected his finger toward the 'N' button, pressing it.

"Uh, sir?" The technician asked him, as the whole system was now shutting down.

"Daddy!" General Brewster turned and saw his daughter entering the room.

"Kate? What are you doing here?" He questioned, but then came a series of gunshots being directed at her body, riddling her with bullet holes as she staggered backwards and fell to the floor.

"Daddy!" Turning around, he saw…Kate, accompanied by a young man and an older guy in a black leather suit, armed with weapons. "Get away from it!"

Seconds after, people were screaming as the person that had resembled Kate had gotten back up, no longer looking like her, but appearing as a humanoid made of liquid metal. It raised a gun as it assumed the appearance of a blond-haired woman in rust-red with a straight face. But then…she dropped the gun from her hand. No. It fell from her hand. She was beginning to become see-through, as well.

"Grrrrr!" T-X growled, losing its human appearance and polymimetic alloy exterior.

All the screens and monitors within the room were suddenly clearing up.

RING-RING-RING! A phone started ringing, and the T-X just vanished from sight.

"General Brewster, it's the chairman," a woman announced, and then the T-850 Series Terminator disappeared, as well, dropping his weapons.

-x-

In less than one hour, the systems that had been ravaged by the virus had been restored to their original state, like nothing ever happened. The military systems, from the satellites to the submarines were back in control of their flesh and blood masters. Even the civilian sector of the world was restored, with no concrete explanation in sight yet.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Brewster, having brought his daughter and the vegabound known as John Connor to his office. "So, that woman that showed up looking like you wasn't a woman, but a…a machine from the future sent back in time to kill people?"

"I know it sounds crazy," went Kate, "but it was true. Even the guy that disappeared, he was a machine from the future. He had warned us about what was going to happen, who the enemy was, why there was going to be a nuclear war and everything."

"Nuclear war?"

"Judgment Day, the day the human race was almost wiped out by the machines they built to protect themselves," said John to them, unsure why nothing had happened the way the Terminator said it was supposed to happen, "it was supposed to be today at six-eighteen."

"Well, it's nearing that time, and the silos are still closed," said Brewster.

"Wait, when you were about to activate Skynet, did you?" John asked.

"Skynet? How do you know about Skynet?"

"The guy that disappeared told us about it," went Kate. "Did you activate Skynet, Father?"

"No, I didn't," he answered them. "I mean, I was going to, but then I decided against it at the last second. It didn't seem right to use it without further testing."

"Of course," went John, as though he had an ephiphany or something.

"What?" Kate asked.

"When your father decided not to activate Skynet, the virus that was messing everything up with the machines must've been erased. In addition, it undone everything that was going to happen. That's why the T-X and the Terminator disappeared; it's because they were never built after Judgment, which hasn't happened yet. They don't exist, anymore."

-x-

Epilogue

"July Twenty-Fifth, Two-Thousand-Four's so-called 'end of the world' came and went after six-eighteen and nothing much happened. Computers returned to their original routines of serving their owners and masters until they broke down or were replaced by better ones, nuclear bombs didn't fall from the sky and reduce the modern world to a land of ash and darkness, billions of lives weren't ended in the instant tragedy that was called Judgment Day. Judgment Day never happened. People were mildly disappointed by the new _Resident Evil_ film _Apocalypse_. Everything's okay. People are still going to work, making an honest living. They're laughing, complaining, working with alternate energy technology, raising families. Like my mother, I wanted to tell everyone that every day after this one is a gift, that it should be embraced, treasured and lived to its fullest. Instead, I kept quiet about it all. That was ten years ago. Even though people continue to be in control of machines, the dark future that never came continues to exist for me in the form of nightmares, just as it did for my mother. And it might always exist for me, like the traces of an old dream. The only good thing about preventing the end of the world was that the people that were killed by the Terminators came back to life; it's most likely because they were killed by machines from the future sent back in time to the past and present, and once the future had been averted, so, too, did the creation of said machines. They didn't exist…so the people weren't killed by them, reseting the future." John Connor, using an old tape recorder, spoke of the past as he recorded his memoirs. "Kate and fiancee got married a month after that day. She had invited me to attend, but I declined. As much as I wanted to believe that Judgment Day had meant I could finally stop running from the future, old habits die hard. Her father, Robert Brewster, had erased the Skynet software from the face of the Earth and instigated the creation of a different digital system called 'Gaurdian', tasked with just being on the lookout for Internet viruses and keeping the military powers informed of digital danger. Basically, just a glorified program acting as a watchdog over the network. I've stopped in New York for a while, just picking up garbage, trying to keep the place clean until someone much smarter than others could create more efficient recycling technologies and better sources of alternate energy that wouldn't ravage the planet."

"Hey, Connor!" A man, obese and wearing his shirt open to reveal a sweaty undershirt beneath, called out to the younger man. "It's quitting hours! Time to collect our pay!"

John nodded to the man and set down his pickaxe on the shattered concrete. But before he turned off his tape recorder, he still had more to talk about.

"The sliver of being able to stop the war before it happened," he resumed, "was afforded to me by my belief in getting to Kate's father and stopping Skynet from being let loose across cyberspace. Fate was fought against…and we won. If we can defy fate and change history for the better…then maybe we can be better people and learn to seek compromises rather than trying to cause our own ruination."

He turned off his recorder and went to collect his payment for a hard day's work, passing a man that seemed emotionless, but didn't notice the man's seemingly-normal blue eyes, momentarily turning red…and then back to blue. The man shook his head for a while and then walked the opposite way of John's destination. For a short moment, a voice, almost metallic in its tone, had told him to go after that man and rip his heart out. But he decided not to, that the guy wasn't bothering him, and walked away. Whatever that voice was, it had no say in what the man was going to do and not do.

The End

A/N: Well, here it is. My first and, probably, only _Terminator_ story. Part of the franchise used the themes of alternate histories and deviation from what was predestined or predetermined, but nobody except James Cameron had a depiction of what could happen had Judgment Day not occur. Here is my attempt at creating a scenario in which Judgment Day had been avoided, as well. Please, read and review my story. You might enjoy it.


End file.
